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The Pushkin Job

Unmasking the Thieves behind an international

rare books heist by Philip Alterman

read by Daniela Denby Ash.

On the 16th of October, 2023, a young man and woman sat down in the back row of the second floor reading room of the University Library of Warsaw, Poland. Their reading cards carried the

names, Solvena Hildegard and Marco Orovac.

On the desk in front of them were eight books with yellowing pages that they had ordered up

from the library's closed storage 19th century collection. Rare editions of classic works of poetry,

drama and fiction by two greats of the Russian canon,

Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol. They studied the books closely, taking photographs

on their phones and measurements with rulers. When the duo did not return from a cigarette

break and the invigilators checked their desk,

they found that five of the eight books had gone. One of the missing Pushkin works was a narrative

poem about the adventures of two outlaws, the robber brothers. It was as if the thieves had

wanted to send a message.

In the days that followed, a more thorough investigation of the library stocks revealed that a further 74 books of Russian literature had been stolen in the weeks

or even months leading up to the final swoop.

The thieves had managed to avoid detection by replacing the books they had stolen with what one

newspaper described as high-quality facsimiles of the originals. They did not have to worry about

...